The White Carpet arrivals are almost over. Lady Gaga 's dress is by Alexander McQueen. She's attending with gay veterans.

Lots of short black and dark blue dresses with dark purple sheens.

The Jersey Shore cast arrived early. Snooki looks cute and round.

Some awards were just announced. Lady Gaga won for Best Dance Video (Bad Romance) and Best Collaberation (Telephone) [More...]

Los Angeles is gearing up for tomorrow night's MTV Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga is up for 13 awards. She's nominated twice in the music video of the year category, for Telephone and Video Phone. "Telephone" is a video of her getting thrown in jail. Beyonce bonds her out, and then they go on a homicidal rage killing people in a diner. Thelma and Louise, it's not.

Beyonce is nominated five times for her video, Video Phone, made with....Lady Gaga. (Both videos are also up in the Best Collaboration category.)Then there's the Glitter Queen, Ke$ha, who is up for three awards, including Best Female Video, Best Pop Video and Best New Artist for "Tik Tok." I am clueless as to how it counts either as music or award material. What am I missing? [More...]

Gainesville disowns Terry Jones. What the residents think: He's "a lunatic", "a publicity hound" and "a weirdo."

In New York, supporters of the Islamic Center held a vigil near Ground Zero.

"Stand Up To Cancer" dominated the airwaves tonight, did anyone see it? Thoughts?

New York Magazine has a very funny recap of last night's Jersey Shore, which was the best episode of the season (if that's not an oxymoron): "It Puts the Lotion on the Butt."

This week's episode was for the ladies. The plate-throwing, hair-pulling, sex-having, plastic-bag-wearing ladies, who were uniformly on their absolute worst behavior, in the most incredible way.

The recap is funnier than the episode, but there were some gems. First there's a knock-down fight between Sammi and Jenni in which they lost their fake fingernails, later found in the kitchen, along with their pulled out hair extensions. Then Snooki's getting ready to "get intimate" with her new guy, and she's putting extra hairspray, perfume and lotion on: “If it's a smoosh, you gotta put lotion on your butt.” Then she dresses up like an exterminator to clean the "communal smoosh room."

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I don't know what they are drinking over at The American Prospect, but this is a strange post:

It also, should be clear, what the stakes are here for progressives. As frustrating as Lincoln is, there's unlikely to be a true progressive representing Arkansas. Keeping the likes of Boozman out of the Senate is a as good a goal to have as any.

I can hardly think of a less intelligent goal. Setting aside Lincoln's record, which is awful (her opponent's is worse), Lincoln is down 30 points. She is done. Any dime or minute spent on Lincoln is a dime or minute wasted. A true progressive champion, Barbara Boxer, is fighting for her political life in California. If progressives have any money or time to spare, it should be going to fight for Barbara Boxer, not Blanche Lincoln. That TAPPED post is nuts.

Speaking for me only

Andrew Sullivan:

In New York, this [the Koran burning Christian cleric] is demanding a meeting with the Imam of the Park51 mosque, while not quite canceling plans for a Koran burning. And so one group of fanatics reveals a religious mindset that immediately threatens mass violence if one nutjob in America performs a foul stunt of bigotry; and another group of fanatics tries to leverage that violence to prevent a perfectly legitimate religious center being built in New York City, a position actually endorsed by the leading figures of one US political party.

So Islamism, via Christianism, threatens Islam, while Christian extremism deeply wounds and slanders actual Christianity. All of it brings the world to the edge of violence and war that kills innocents and makes the work of the troops even harder than it already is. Now, of course, Jones has every right to do whatever he wants in an America with a First Amendment. But think of a GI in Kandahar right now. You really think he needed this?

How very intemperate of Sullivan.

Speaking for me only

Saying he'd been lied to, Pastor Terry Jones has backtracked from his announcement calling off his Quran burning project. Now he says he's contemplating going through with the stunt.

We're definitely going to think it over and reconsider it," the Rev. Terry Jones told reporters Thursday night. "Now we're in somewhat a state of limbo, and we have to rethink of course our position."

In addition to this morning's plea from President Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Jones today. The FBI was on scene at his Dove World headquarters today. They also issued a bulletin:

"While the FBI has no information to indicate a specific attack has been planned against the United States or U.S. assets in response to the 'International Burn a Koran Day' event, the FBI assesses with high confidence that, as with past incidents perceived as acts of desecration against Islam, extremist actors will continue to threaten or attempt to harm the leaders, organizers, or attendees the event," the FBI posted in a bulletin.

Were they there for security or to warn him he could be arrested? For what? I wrote up some possibilities here.

Update: Iman says Islamic Center will not move. Terry Jones was mistaken.

"I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qurans," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said in a statement. "However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones or Imam Musri (of Florida). I am surprised by their announcement. We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."

Pastor Terry Jones has called off his Quran burning stunt. The pastor said he was doing so because the he reached an agreement with unnamed "muslim leaders" that the planned Islamic Center in New York would be moved.

No one has yet confirmed this "agreement" to move the Islamic Center.

I hope Terry Jones' 15 minutes are over, although I expect the damage he has caused will last quite a while. Shame on him. It's way past time for him crawl back under whatever rock he sprang from.

Update: Via TMZ: Donald Trump offers to buy the Islamic Center site for cost + 25%, payable in cash at closing, if the owners agree to build their center at least five blocks further than the current planned site. Letter here. You can listen to Trump here.

Update: Thread closing due to insults between commenters. It will be cleaned.

Via Matt Yglesias, who accurately dubs the entire article "surreal," Jeffery Goldberg on Fidel Castro (Part 2 was standard fare sycophancy):

I was even more curious, however, to get a glimpse of the great man.

I'm pretty sure that Goldberg is referring to Castro as a "great man" in the important in history sense, not in the "I think he is wonderful" sense. But it still startled me. It also reminded me of the Louis Farrakhan brouhaha back in the day with the Hitler was a great man stuff. (Also interesting to remember was Farrakhan's "judaism is a gutter religion comment in light of today's anti-Muslim hysteria.) Some thoughts on the flip.

Oliver Willis:

No doubt the accomodationist left will clutch their pearls and the righties will reach for their fainting couches, but Petraeus is spot on.

Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday denounced plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Koran this weekend, saying the demonstration could ‘endanger troops’ and damage the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. ‘It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems,’ Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

(Emphasis mine.) Now what, weenie liberals? FTR, I do not think Petraeus should be commenting on this in any way. I am not offended by his comparison, but I think the military should not be making comments on these types of events. Stick to discussing military policy issues (I realize that he see this as a military policy issue, but it is too close to discussing what is acceptable speech for me.)

Speaking for me only

HBO's new original series, Boardwalk Empire, starring Steve Buscemi, takes place in Atlantic City in 1920. (Full cast and character descriptions here.)If it sounds like the Sopranos in an earlier time era, it may be because Terence Winter and Martin Scorcese are involved.

Will reliving Prohibition's spectacular failure every week reduce enthusiasm for the War on Drugs? It's hard to miss the connection.

The show starts Sept. 19, and from the many trailers, available on You Tube (I skipped the one in the Times, it's preceded by a long commercial), the show looks like a winner. HBO could use a winner after Treme, which I thought was a dud.

Dateline Aspen: Dinner Saturday night at Matsuhisa (Nobu): Anita and I were seated next to Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, their former son-in-law Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes (headlining Jazz Aspen Snowmass tomorrow night), Chris' new wife Allison and their new baby. The baby was adorable. They were having a great time. At first I wondered if I was witnessing a commercial for the modern, enlightened, extended family unit, but they were having such a good time and they seemed so natural and genuine, I ended up wishing there were more families like them.

The soft-shell crab was excellent.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The American Prospect's Jamelle Bouie wrote a negative review of Markos' Moulitsas' "American Taliban. Joining in the condemnation, even though they have not read the book, were Beltway bloggers Matt Yglesias and Ta-Neheisi Coates (whose critique was particularly noteworthy, given his spirited defenses of Atlantic colleagues Jeffrey Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan.) These writers were very upset that Markos had compared the Extreme Right in the United States to the Taliban. It was a strange complaint in my view, as regular readers know.

But an interesting fact has come to light -- it turns out that Robert Kuttner, the head honcho at The American Prospect, penned an article titled American Taliban in February 2010. The article was a review of Max Blumenthal's book, Republican Gomorrah, which reported on the Religious Right in the United States. Curiously, in defiance of The Kevin Drum Rule (which requires that all "intemperate" attacks on Republicans by the Left must be met by condemnation by the Beltway Left), I found no condemnations of Kuttner's article from the Beltway Left. Accordingly, in keeping with The Drum Rule, Kuttner must be excoriated for his "intemperate" article comparing the Extreme Right to the Taliban. I will do so here, using the template conveniently provided to me by The American Prospect's Jamelle Bouie. On the flip, my review.